Not this year! But we WILL be at NYCC:Special Edition with Topatoco this year (June 6-7, very soon!), and we'll have copies of CUTTINGS with us! Come by and say hey! It's looking to be a lot less hectic than the regular NYCC, which is great... more time to chat with you guys.

Does Yuko need more mugs? Where should we send cute mugs to? :D

- Kim N.

Yuko: I LOVE MUGS

Ananth: Hey Kim! Did you hear something? Anyway, Yuko doesn't need new mugs. Can we mail you some of hers? (The best way to give her mugs or anything else is probably to catch us at a show!)

Hey guys!! Big news!! Which I'm sure you can see clearly!! We got a new website! I've had this design sitting around for a couple of years and had a lot of false starts on it (sorry Scott & Conrad!), but it's finally come together thanks to Erin and Hiveworks! Thank you guys (and Scott and Conrad) so much, the new site is a dream! We're sooo pumped.

One thing you'll notice is the new buttons on the sidebar, for Autobio, Penny and Fiction. This gives each of them a landing page that's easily linkable. Likewise, the Archive had been reorganized... this is to make it much easier for people to read the stuff they want. The archive was our biggest priority, and Erin was super patient with us in getting it to where it needed to be.

We'll be working out all the kinks over the coming weeks-- let us know if you see any issues. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the new look!

You've said in a couple of places that Walking Gods isn't your next project, but the one after. Can you tell us something about your new project? btw I like the pictures of the girl character you posted to patreon!

S.

Oh thank you! For those curious, this is the character:

She's the protagonist! I can't say a lot about her, and in truth I can't say a whole lot about the project just yet except to say that I've written 90+ pages of it and that it'll feature the return of some characters you might be familiar with... and we're VERY excited about THAT! More about this in the coming months. Thanks for the question!

Er, hello! This may be too personal a question, but was there ever a moment for either of you where you knew or decided that you weren't going to follow the 'typical' job route, but were going to make it as artists? If there was, did you do anything to make sure that was a dream you could follow?

I mean, I know you guys went to college and all for your respective creative fields, but was there maybe something before that? Thanks for reading my question - please continue being awesome.

Regards,

Scott S.

Yuko: I knew since I was a kid and my dad was crossing his fingers through my entire childhood that I'd change my mind. I made comics all through high school but assumed it could never be made into a career. I majored in animation in college and figured I would get a storyboarding job or something to support myself so I could do comics in my free time. But then half way through my senior year I was hired to illustrate a comic and it snowballed from there. After college, I've managed to almost exclusively do comics, illustration, and design work.

Ananth: Hey Scott! I worked a full-time job as a designer for two years, and when I left I had an idea it might be the end of my traditional career path. I had been working on comics since sophomore year of college and that had continued through graduation and my dayjob. During my two years as a staff designer, I was basically working two jobs at once-- designer during the day, comics at night. I saved as much money as I could during this two-year period, I think partly because I knew I was going to try something dumb, and partly because I was working so much that I barely had time to go out and spend money anyway. In any case, the cushion helped me land on my feet. If you have a nontraditional dream you want to follow, planning for it financially goes a long way. It's a boring, practical and unsexy answer, but it's the realest advice I can give.

I should mention, my idea of making it as an artist is getting to a point where we can just be making art, expanding to work with others, and handling less and less aspects of running a business. With that in mind, I'll be honest: I don't know if we've made it! I feel like we're getting close. We really want to make more work for you guys, you're the best, and your support keeps us striving to do more.

Hi Yuko and Ananth!

What are your favorite anime shows/movies? Also, what's the possibility that you two will be appearing as exhibitors in any California comic conventions in the future?

Best,

Strea

Hi Strea! Anime! Hmm. Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon-- Yuko's a big fan of Tokyo Godfathers... I really like all the surreal imagery in Paprika. We loved Wolf Children. Dennou Coil was great until the last few episodes. A recent favorite was My Eccentric Family. We also fell into the deep end with HunterxHunter earlier this year. I have to admit, it's hard for me to cite favorites! Our tastes have changed so much in the past few years. We've most recently been enjoying My Love Story, it's cute.

Ananth:HAHA. Are they reading? No? Good. No I'm kidding, I like both of them... I like cats because they mostly do their own thing, and I like to do my own thing, so it's a good human/pet relationship for me. On a bad day, I like Rook a lot because he's very forgiving, so you can kind of pick him up and make him spend time with you and he's pretty content. He's also VERY SOFT! Cricket is a lot more aloof, and also bananas. Watching her dash around and drift first thing in the morning is entertaining. Cricket is also the quietest cat I've ever met, and I appreciate that because Rook is the LOUDEST cat I've ever met. Anyway, I think we got pretty lucky in the cat department.

Yuko: HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN MY CHILDREN

Yuko and Ananth,

I was just curious about what you are reading? Do you read comics mostly?

Ananth: Comics are definitely a minority on my reading list these days... In terms of written-word books, I recently finished The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath), and the force of her voice and her grip on language has me wishing dearly she'd written more novels. She's unbelievable. Before that I read the Earthsea series (Ursula K. Le Guin), and before that was The Panopticon (Jenni Fagan), The Golem and the Jinni (Helene Wecker), This is How You Lose Her (Junot Diaz)... I'm forgetting past that. Reading book-books is what gets me thinking about WHAT I'm writing and that's been on my mind a lot lately.

Yuko: I most recently read Tehanu (Ursula K. Le Guin). I usually listen to audiobooks while I work. Don't ask me about the majority of audiobooks I listen to.

Ananth: Ummm we usually pick up comics together, and mostly we get them for the art... it's at the point where we're mostly picking up foreign language books. I think our top two are Freaks Squeele (Florent Maudoux) and Gray & Wonder Around Her (Aki Irie)? Besides that, I've been reading Ms. Marvel.

Yuko: Yeah. Freaks Squeele was recently picked up for localization... I really hope the Aki Irie book gets localized too! Umm, yesterday I finished reading Tesoro, a collection of early short stories by Natsume Ono.